Eve Shepherd on her rise to world renowned sculptor

Sculptor Eve Shepherd with her statue that recognises refugee and immigrant communities

Some people never work out what they want to be when they grow up but Eve Shepherd coveted a career in the arts from the age of 14.

After securing her first job at 17, she went on to land widely-acclaimed public commissions.

These included sculptures of eminent figures including Wales' first black head teacher Betty Campbell and professor Stephen Hawking.

But her path to becoming a top sculptor has not been without its set backs.

In a wide-ranging interview as part of the Sussex and Surrey Art Life series, Woodingdean-based Ms Shepherd talks about her working class upbringing, her inspirations and how her careers advisor sought to steer her away from an arts career.

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Ms Shepherd, who grew up in Sheffield in the 1980s, said none of her family were "artistic or creative" but that it did not stop her.

"(It was) very much not on the cards but it's all I really wanted to do," she said, adding she was encouraged instead to go into social work by her careers adviser.

Fired with youthful enthusiasm, she contacted sculptor Anthony Bennett who lived near her college. She said: "I went and knocked on his door when I was like 16 and said 'Give me a job!'."

She later went to Chelsea College of Art & Design after being snubbed by galleries for not attending university.

Listen to Sussex and Surrey Art Life on BBC Sounds, a five-part series which looks at artists around Sussex and Surrey with Kairen Kemp.

Ms Shepherd said art can be a "very powerful medium for feeling heard".

As well as commissions of professor Stephen Hawking and Betty Campbell, Ms Shepherd also made a statue of one of Britain's last World War One veterans, Henry Allingham, who lived in Eastbourne.

Ms Shepherd, an associate member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors, said Betty Campbell's statue was commissioned because the Monumental Welsh Women noticed there were no sculptures of eminent women in Wales.

"Up until really recently, there were more sculptures of dogs than women in the UK," she added.

Statues by Eve Shepherd of professor Stephen Hawking (left) and Betty Campbell (right)

Her successes now mark a far cry from her early attempts at art work. She recalled the time she decided to fire her own work in the kitchen of her family home at the age of 12.

"I got this big lump of clay and stuck it on the edge of a fork when my parents weren't in, I just stuck it on the hob," she said.

"The next thing I know, an enormous bang and the whole thing had completely exploded all over the kitchen."

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